Tag: Trump
Fox & Trump are a tag team when it comes to media wrestling (ODT)
Fox News spent crucial weeks minimizing the danger posed by the novel coronavirus COVID-19 in order to protect President Donald Trump, and recent polls show that the network’s viewers are less likely to be concerned about it than other major media audiences. Top Trump administration officials are now praising the network for its coverage, even as Fox comes under fire from other outlets for endangering the public by actively spreading misinformation about the virus.
In these ways, the coronavirus health and economic crisis will be Morrison’s nemesis as it will his mentor Donald Trump. As Bret Stephens concludes
It should not have had to take a deadly virus to expose this presidency (or prime ministership) for what it is. But it’s fitting that it has. A man who thinks he can twist every truth to suit his needs has at last discovered that he cannot twist the truths of nature and of one of nature’s gods. Her name remains Nemesis.
via Coronavirus will prove Morrison’s nemesis. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Ok, so it’s Monday. The stock market is in free fall, perhaps temporarily, perhaps not. What with Trump’s tariff games in play, that scary virus from China seems to be one of the few things getting into this country from that country. (Though Ivanka’s line of clothes is exempt from those tariffs.) Meanwhile, it looks like the polar regions , north and south, might soon become Margaritavilles.
But the good news is that most of the polls are positive about Bernie Sanders, my personal choice, winning the Democratic Party nomination to lead the fight against Trump in the fall. Most of the polls also show Bernie beating that rotten bastard, too. It’s also clear that he’d be a most formidable debate opponent against Trump.
via What the Hell is Wrong With Us? Are We Really This Stupid? | The Smirking Chimp
The Great Divider knows how to pit native-born Americans against immigrants, the working class against the poor, whites against blacks and Latinos, evangelicals against secularists, keeping almost everyone stirred up by vilifying, disparaging, denouncing, defaming and accusing others of the worst. Trump thrives off disruption and division.
But that begs the question of why we have been so ready to be divided by Trump. The answer derives in large part from what has happened to wealth and power.
via Why Democrats share the blame for the rise of Donald Trump | Robert Reich | Opinion | The Guardian
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.
Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.”
General Dwight D Eisenhower
Farewell address 1961All the war party needs is a steady supply of foreign villains (preferably Muslims) who can be occasionally bombed back to the early Islamic age. Americans have largely forgotten George W. Bush’s lurid claims that Iraqi drones of death were poised to shower poisons on the sleeping nation. Even the Soviets never ventured so deep into the sea of absurdity.
The more I listen to his words, the more I like Ike.
Trump’s foreign policy, from his inaugural address, is “America First”: an aggressive assertion of national self-interest, of nativism and protectionism, of America’s retreat from the commitments and alliances built after World War II, of unilateralism to advance America’s (and Trump’s) priorities above all others. And with respect to the Middle East, to end the “endless wars” that have consumed American troops and treasure for 18 years and counting.
Australia, a juniour partner in the Coalition of the Killing, wants senior status it seems. While Trump has declared he’s putting the fight against ISIS on hold in order to deal with IRAN Theresa Payne wants to take over that war on Daesh. Remember when Trump declared that war was won. He relocated troops in Syria to grab the oil and betrayed the Kurds in the process. Now the USA are mercenary force for Exxon It’s always been questioned why we are in Iraq? Why John Howard joined the illegal invasion of a Sovereign State that doesn’t want us there? Now we are ready to partake in yet another escallated war with Iran who signed a peace treaty before Trump came on the scene. A treaty we are now supporting the total shredding of. Payne is proof we are Puppets lapdogs to American politics for profit and its grab for Middle Eastern oil which when said and done we will buy from the US at their price.
More to the point the LNP ready to see the escalation of violence and another unwinnable war offering up Australian lives as we have done time again since WW2. What we are doing is boosting Trump’s desperate efforts in domestic American politics. (ODT)
Foreign Minister Marise Payne will on Tuesday publicly plead for the Iraqi government to let Australian and international partners remain in the country.
“We urge the Iraqi government to ensure the coalition is able to continue its vital work with Iraq’s security forces in countering the shared threat of Daesh,” she said.
“We understand the resolution passed by Iraq’s parliament is non-binding, absent formal approval by the government in Baghdad.”
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski also said she remained undecided on how she would vote in the president’s Senate impeachment trial, according to KTUU.
Canada, one of its two closest neighbours and largest trading partner. Britain, with which it enjoyed the heralded special relationship.
And France, whose Marquis de Lafayette was instrumental in the American Revolution of the late 1700s.
Who could have anticipated that an American president would have been the subject of mocking among their leaders?
And worse, that one of those allies would tangle with him publicly under a global spotlight?
That’s what happened this week at the summit of NATO countries in London.
Whether Donald Trump was embarrassed, upset or simply tired from recent travels, he packed up early and went home to Washington — an even more hostile place, given that impeachment proceedings are swirling.
Is the US puppet show over? (ODT)
via Iraqis Rise Up Against 16 Years of “Made in the USA” Corruption | The Smirking Chimp
Four decades of Israeli “occupation reversed and legalised by Trump and his Administration but not in the eyes of the rest of the World (ODT)
via US says Israeli settlements are no longer illegal – BBC News
Character assassination is what Fox News does. The problem for Trump when it comes to the impeachment scandal is that Fox News has too many characters it needs to assassinate.
Lindsey Graham says Trump’s Ukraine policy was incoherent. It wasn’t. He knew what he wanted. But the strategy to defend the president in this impeachment proceeding is certainly incoherent at this point. He will probably survive a trial in the Senate, but none of his defenders are going to come out looking any better than he does. The central fact they can’t accept is that his behavior was indefensible.
via Looks Like GOP Might Run With the “Moron Defense” for Trump | The Smirking Chimp
Trump is exactly who his critics have always said he was: a venal, narcissistic, corrupt, self-dealing wannabe autocrat. He has proven that over and over again, and the Ukraine scandal is just the latest demonstration of a plain fact. It’s impeachable on its own, but it’s also falls at the end of a series of condemnable conduct. His ideological compatriots should start taking the president’s critics seriously, instead of desperately trying to sweep Trump’s mountain of wrongdoing under the rug.
via The Ukraine Scandal Proves Trump Is Exactly Who We Warned You He Was | The Smirking Chimp
